


Damned If You Do

by DestielHasThePhoneBox



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Hydra (Marvel), Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 13:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6081405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielHasThePhoneBox/pseuds/DestielHasThePhoneBox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After all the trouble they've gone through to raise their own pet genius, Hydra certainly isn't about to let him go so easily. Tony doesn't much care what Hydra wants. Unfortunately for him, he maybe should care a little more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damned If You Do

**Author's Note:**

> The graphic violence mentioned isn't that graphic, but I wanted to tag just in case. More in the end notes if you'd like the spoiler.

The day he makes his last failed escape attempt, Tony is sitting in a chemistry lab, running a simulation. Dr. Nilson, the supervising scientist, is looming over him and giving one of his long, droning and completely unnecessary lectures about organic chemistry in a strong Swedish accent that Tony maybe wouldn't mind so much if it weren't who is speaking— as if Tony didn't already figure this out before the man set him up to run this stupid simulated experiment — while Tony does his best to ignore him in favor of thinking everything through. Nilson is very convinced of his own importance and the value of his work and has made it clear more than once how he feels about having to tutor Tony. Tony tried to assure him that he didn't want to be there either, but apparently that was not actually what the man wanted to hear. Figures. 

So he's irritated, but tries to reassure himself that he won't have to listen to this again. If things go right, and they have to, he'll be out of here before the day is out and he'll never come back. 

Everything is ready. He has all the parts he needs for his makeshift taser, which he scattered around the lab before, but is working to collect in his pocket whenever Nilson looks away. He memorized the layout of this wing of the facility years ago — that was escape attempt number one, back when he first got here and thought mapping the place out on paper would be enough. Spoiler, it wasn't. Instead, the map is what got him caught and then Madame made him shred all of his papers while she watched, leaving him again with a barren cell of a room. He comforts himself that he was barely nine then and was new to the whole escape thing and tries not to think about the other escape attempts since then, all of which have been worse and worse failures. 

This one will work. He's been planning it out for almost a year, waiting for the perfect opportunity to spring it. After the last attempt had landed him in a holding cell for a week before he was allowed to return to his once again empty room, he had had to wait months before he was allowed any kind of privileges again. That doesn't mean he has any privacy or personal possessions beyond textbooks and the papers he has pinned up to his walls to keep himself from going insane, but it does mean he's allowed to go to the labs for his lessons again and the armed guards stand outside rather than in. It probably helps that none of his attempts so far have been violent. They're not expecting him to try to hurt anyone, but he's ready. He's sixteen and he's beyond ready to escape. He's ready to be serious about this. It ends today. 

Nilson smacks his hand away from the keyboard, tsking at a silly mistake Tony made while not paying attention, and starts up on a speech about scientific integrity and checking your work. Tony rolls his eyes as hard and as obviously as possible, but Nilson doesn't even seem to notice, too absorbed in going over Tony's work and being obnoxious. 

The lab lesson drags on longer than usual, or at least it feels like it does, so by the time Nilson finally dismisses him, Tony feels about ready to shake out of his skin.

"Go," Nilson says, waving his hand at Tony disdainfully. "I have actual work to do today." 

Tony grabs his notes, tucks them under his arm and sticks his shaking hands into his slightly bulging pockets. His hands are trembling out of adrenalin, he decides, because there's no time for fear right now. There's no time for shaking hands at all really, but he gets to work anyway, blinding feeling the pieces he's managed to sneak into his pockets to assemble his taser, and hoping like hell that he hasn't somehow left something out. He's not really supposed to have anything in his pockets ever, for exactly this reason, so he hopes that just having his hands there will distract from that long enough for him to finish the parts he needs. 

He goes into the hallway where he's met with a black garbed guard, one of the ones he usually has walking him back and forth between the labs and his room. He had hoped, a long time ago, that having the same guards would mean he could build some kind of rapport that would make them sympathetic to his case, but it's certainly never kept them from physically dragging him places if he tried not to go. It won't keep him from doing what he has to now though, so maybe it's for the best. 

He finishes putting the pieces together in the hallway while walking just in front of the guard, completely certain he's going to be caught too early, and then suddenly it's time. 

Seeing his window and knowing that a moment off will doom him to failure, Tony pulls the two assembled pieces of his taser out of his pockets and slams them together in front of him. Swinging around, he punches it to the guard's neck, jolting the man back and sending him sprawling to the ground. Tony makes a grab for the man's keycard, attached to one of his belt loops, and then runs away before he can stir or someone else notices the commotion.

He had spotted the computer room on the way to one of his lab sessions, when someone opened the door wide enough to see into. That wasn't the incredible part though. The best part was that the cameras in that hallway seemed to miss the door entirely. With that realization, he became instantly determined to get into that room. With access to computers, he felt certain he could get into the system and create enough chaos to get to the upper levels and then outside again. 

He doesn't allow himself to doubt his computer skills, even if he knows that his ideas on how he is going to do this are largely theoretical. Instead he swipes into the computer lab, closes the door behind him, and sits down at the first computer terminal. 

Logging into the system is easy using one of his tutors' log ins — they so often log into their computers in front of him like he can't memorize their passwords from one reading just because they’re overcomplicated— and then it's a crash course in all of the computer hacking he hasn't actually been able to practice much. He's not allowed a personal computer and it's not actually that easy to get away with stuff in front of the computer scientists who teach him his computer science lessons, but he's tried his hand a little. 

He manages to get as far as what seems like the access to the security system before the alarms go off. Cursing, he types furiously, coding as quickly as possible to try and get the hacking program he thought up running. He's a genius, it's the whole reason they wanted him here. He has to be able to do this. 

What he thought was going to be the security system turns out to be nothing more than the blueprints of the building, which, while useful, isn't nearly what he was hoping for. He does his best to look it over as quickly and thoroughly as possible anyway, and then goes back to searching the computer system for any way to access the security. Anything. At this point, he would settle for just cameras. 

Nothing comes up and he knows he's wasted his one chance. Dismayed, he sets about just being as destructive as possible. If he can't get himself out, maybe he can corrupt some files and make things a little harder for his captors. With that in mind, he ignores the alarms and does exactly that. Any kind of files he can get his hands on, he destroys. From the brief glances he gets at them, he thinks they're mostly scientific studies, which makes it almost too bad that he's ruining the information. 

Then he comes across designs for something he's never heard of, that honestly doesn't sound realistic to him at all. He barely has time to consider what the file says before he hears the door open and knows his time is up. He corrupts it just like the others and then looks up at the figure standing in the doorway. 

It's not an army of guards like he half expected, but rather a woman in a black pantsuit. He sits up straighter then and sets the taser aside, knowing that trying to fight her like that will only make things worse. Feeling suddenly cool where he had been feeling hot and nervous before, Tony swallows and casts around in his head for some kind of excuse. Unsurprisingly, nothing comes to him to excuse tasing the guard and then breaking into a computer lab. All he can think about is how stupid he was to think this would work. How stupid he was to think he could use unpracticed skills on a system he didn't know and still have time to actually get out. 

The door closes and then it's just Tony and her in the room, the only sounds the cooling systems on the computers and her heels on the floor as she walks toward him. She looks perfectly put together, just like she always does, hair pulled up like she's going somewhere nice, make up done up flawlessly, and her suit pressed to perfection. She looks just like any business woman or politician, except for the pin he can see on her lapel, shining proudly in red and black. 

"Tony," she says, voice filled with the sort of parental disappointment that he imagines would surprise anyone else who knows her. As for him, he hears it every time he breaks a rule and he knows what follows. "I'm surprised at you. Getting violent isn't like you, what's gotten into you?" 

Rage wins out over fear for the moment and he snaps, "Maybe it has something to do with being kidnapped and held here against my will for years?" 

She raises a brow at him and ignores his outburst. "Come here, Tony," she tells him. Her eyes flick down to his taser and she adds, "and bring that." 

Fear sweeps back into him and he does what she says. If there's one thing he's learned from being under her charge since he was nine, it's that disobeying her is the worst mistake he can make. The fact that she isn't afraid of him having a weapon in his hands doesn't surprise him, but it doesn't fill him with comfort either. 

Taser in hand, Tony stands in front of her silently. In heels, which she always wears, Tony actually stands a few inches shorter than her, so he has to tilt his head back to look up at her face. She smiles at him, looking pleased with his obedience. 

"Show me what you made, Tony," she orders, voice deceptively light. He holds it up for her and looks at it really for the first time himself. He had known exactly how to make it himself because all he needed was an electrical charge that he could hit someone with, but he hadn't had the chance to really see what it would look like put together. Now he can see the wires and the ugly way it doesn't really fit together. He knows it will still work, but he's also suddenly very aware of how easily it could backfire on him. 

"Why did you make this?" she asks. They both know she knows exactly what the answer is, but like usual, she likes making Tony spell out his own doom. He's silent for a long moment before the smile slides off her face and she raises her brows at him expectantly. 

Raising his chin in what he hopes is a defiant manner and says, "To get away from the guard, to get here." 

"So you made it to attack one of our agents?" she asks. "One of the very people who are working toward our joint future and protecting this facility?" 

Tony scowls. "One of the people trying to keep me prisoner," he replies instead. 

She looks almost sympathetic then. "Oh, Tony," she says. "You know I don't want to punish you." 

Tony doesn't know anything of the sort, but he decides not to voice that just now. 

"But you understand why I have to, don't you, dear?" 

Tony doesn't respond. 

"Now, why don't you show me how this little weapon you've made works." 

Tony's mouth feels dry and he thinks about refusing her, but he knows she'll figure it out anyway, even if he doesn't show her. It's not that hard to work. He turns it on and it lights up, lets out a spark he had found triumphant and satisfying just a little while earlier. 

"A little crude, but I'm still pleased to see you've learned something from all those lessons you've been getting," she says. "But there's a lesson you haven't learned yet, apparently. And I think it's important that you do, Tony." 

He hates it when she calls him by his name like that and he hates that he knows what she's going to say next. 

"Use it on yourself, Tony." 

He hesitates, hoping against all logic that she'll take it back. She meets his eyes steadily though, looking at him expectantly. He holds it up, wondering what his punishment will be if he refuses to do it himself. He knows she gets some kind of satisfaction out of making him act out his own punishments, but he also knows that she's creative enough to make the alternative much, much worse. Maybe if he does this, that'll be it. 

He presses the taser to his other arm and then feels his whole body lock up with the shock of it. The pain is even worse than he expected and he finds himself on the floor a moment later, feeling like his whole body is burning. The only thing that makes it stop is when the involuntary thrashing finally knocks the taser from his hands. Still, he doesn't move from his position.

He can feel tears running down his cheeks and his whole body feels wet from the sweat. He hopes it's just sweat. When he can finally move again, he shifts his head to look at Madame's shoes, unable to bring himself any further. 

She doesn't crouch to speak to him, instead speaks down at him from where she now towers over his prone form. 

"Do you see what you did to that guard now, Tony?" she asks, like this is still just a lesson. Like she actually wanted to teach him something besides what happens when he tried to escape. "This is what happens when you get violent, do you understand?" 

Tony lets out a sob because he can feel his legs twitching and it still hurts to move. 

"Tony, do you understand me?" she repeats. 

"Y-yes, Madame," he replies, voice hoarse in a way that makes him wonder if he had yelled out without realizing it. 

"Good," she says. "Now get off the floor. It's embarrassing." 

Breathing deeply, Tony works to do what she says just as the door to the computer lab opens and the army of guards he had initially expected finally comes in. 

They all raise their arms in salute and say the customary greeting just as Tony pulls himself to his knees. Their voices grate on his ears. 

"Madame Hydra, do you want us to take him to a holding cell?" the lead one asks, not bothering to even look at Tony. 

"Yes," she replies. "I'll be by to collect him again tomorrow." 

One of the guards is already pulling him up forcefully before she's finished speaking and as soon as he's up again, she makes eye contact and smiles at him. 

"We'll continue this conversation in the morning, Tony," she promises him. Tony feels a shiver go down his spine at that, but doesn't respond before he's dragged away to spend the night in a barren cell. 

As he's pulled down the hall, he hears Madame Hydra say something to the guards that he doesn't catch. He does however hear their response, which seems to him to echo after him. 

"Hail Hydra!"

**Author's Note:**

> The "graphic violence" is Tony electric shocking himself with a self made taser type thing. Don't ever do that if you can avoid it, electricity is really very dangerous. 
> 
> As a side note, I may continue with this. I do have more ideas. But I'm also busy with school and have other things to finish as well, so we'll see. Suffice to say that this is Tony's last /failed/ escape attempt, not his last escape attempt in general. :D


End file.
